


Zion

by Kamato



Series: Caravans, Guns, and Old World Religions [2]
Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Drug Abuse, Explicit Language, Grief/Mourning, Honest Hearts DLC, POV First Person, Religion, Sequel, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-18 08:00:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16114199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kamato/pseuds/Kamato
Summary: Maria Trujillo, aka Courier Six, ventures to Zion to find herself after a traumatic event. As told decades after the fact, dictated to a ghostwriter.





	Zion

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for the following chapter include: Mentions of addiction; graphic depictions of violence; foul language

Climbing down the slot canyon took a lot out of us, or else we might have paid more attention to our surroundings. All of us carried heavy packs full of goods and provisions, and most of us had rifles too, and all the bulk made climbing difficult, so my shoulders and thighs burned like fire by the time I arrived at the bottom behind the other people in the caravan. I spent a week travelling from Nevada to Utah with them, but for the life of me I couldn’t recall their names. The fresh grief still distracted me too much. 

The hair on the back of my neck stood up as we stepped away from the slot canyon we’d climbed down. A bridge stretched across another canyon, this one wider, just a couple hundred feet away from us, but between us and there, there was no cover but for a couple bushes so sparse they couldn’t stop a hornet from getting through, let alone a bullet. 

Automatic gunfire started from one of the ledges up above us, and finally having cause to look up, I spotted a couple of pale faces in the bushes there before a bullet slammed into me and shoved me onto my back. The woman I’d been walking beside, probably been flirting with, wore lighter armor than me. The thick leather over her torso might have stopped a nine millimeter bullet, but they must have been using something a bit more powerful, as her back exploded towards me, leaving a spray of blood over my face. She took a couple stumbling steps to the side, so she fell onto my waist rather than my head. 

I laid still as I could. Blood pooled beneath my legs as the woman I’d been talking to sputtered and died. From this distance, maybe two hundred feet, I doubted they could see my eyes moving, so I let myself watch as they shot down a con artist who’d been travelling with us. The last guy, the leader of the caravan, absorbed a bullet with his heavy backpack as he sprinted for the bridge. Then a hail of automatic gunfire cut him down from across the bridge. 

My breathing came shallow, so shallow that it wouldn’t be perceptible beneath my ceramic breastplate. I turned my eyes towards the sun for a moment so they would water a bit and I wouldn’t have to worry about accidentally blinking, at least not worry as much. Carefully, as some of them started climbing down from the ledges above us, I drifted my hand towards the pistol on my hip. Out of the corner of my eyes, I watched one of them search the leader of the caravan. They seemed to wear only loincloths and gecko hide armor, with stringy, wild hair, some of them with red war paint or tattoos. All of them had pale skin, or were painted pale. As they approached me and the dead woman, I saw that they’d been painted, likely to protect them from the sun. 

They spoke a language I never heard before, sounding like some odd gibberish mix of slang English and Spanish. There were four of them. One of them was a woman, and as she bent over to search one of the other bodies with her rifle over her shoulder, I caught a glimpse of her breasts, what would have been enticing if not for the fact that she wanted me dead. 

A man knelt beside me and the body of the other woman. I held my breath tight as he leaned over us and rolled her off my legs. Just after he did, I whipped my pistol out of my holster and put two bullets in his thigh to give me an edge as I scrambled for my feet. He screamed something in that other language, probably a curse, and I wrapped my forearm around his neck and pulled him upright. He snarled something at me, but then I pressed my pistol against his temple and he closed his mouth after saying something in a shaking, scared tone. 

The other three stood before me, their weapons cradled in their arms. I eyed the man with the hefty looking rifle the most, as it had a scope and he tried to skirt around to my left. Then I pointed my pistol at him and he stopped trying to flank me. As I dragged my captive towards the bridge, putting my back to the ravine, I noticed him trying to grab the rifle slung over his shoulder, so I pressed my pistol harder into his temple and growled. He stopped moving his hand. 

As we continued, he kept gasping, probably in a lot of pain from the bullet wounds in his thigh. The other attackers kept their weapons trained on me, but didn’t attack, shouting at me in their odd language. My heart hammered hard enough that I almost thought the man I held to my chest could feel it through my ceramic armor, waiting for one of them to trust their aim enough to take a shot or to get an angle I hadn’t seen. My eyes flicked between each of them, with their snarls and military grade weaponry. 

Nobody took a shot, though, as I stepped over to the bridge. I glanced over my shoulder, at the wood and rope bridge, not entirely trusting it. Seeing it as my one way out, though, I started to drag the man with the thigh wound staining my pants across the bridge. He muttered something in his odd language, and as I noticed one of them trying to walk down the edge of the canyon again to get a better angle on me, I pointed my pistol at him. He kept going, though, so I pulled the trigger, not expecting it to hit as he stood fifty yards away and I couldn’t take proper aim. The desert dirt puffed up at his feet, and he stopped for a moment. 

Then the woman with the submachine gun sent a three bullet burst my way, and I felt more warm blood splash across my cheek as one of the bullets ripped through my man’s deltoid. The bullet ricocheted off my pauldron after passing through him, making me stumble. He screamed something in his language, and I heard one of them chuckle. They made conversation over on the other side of the canyon, and about halfway across it, they came to a consensus. 

Three bullets slammed into my human shield’s body almost simultaneously. The high powered rifle’s bullet ripped through his midsection, denting my breastplate after passing through him and the force of its impact sending me to one knee. One of the other two passed through his calf, missing me, and the third stopped some place in his chest. The man went limp and gasped, then coughed out blood as his lungs filled with it. I dragged him, staying low, but with how heavy he felt, and my shoulders and legs already burning, I knew I couldn’t drag him all the way to the boulder on the far side of the bridge. 

I dropped him and took off for the end of the bridge, shooting a few times wildly behind me in the hopes that it would disrupt the aim of at least one of them. I felt a piece of my ceramic backplate come loose as a bullet hit it and sent me stumbling forward. At the edge of the chasm, I fell to my hands and knees, tripping over an uneven piece of the bridge, and the chatter of automatic gunfire proved fruitful as a bullet ripped through my calf. Thanks to the adrenaline hammering through me, I scarcely even felt it, scrambling for the boulder. 

Once behind the boulder, I ejected the magazine in my pistol and checked how many times I’d shot. Then I remembered their gecko hide armor and holstered my pistol in favor of the rifle over my shoulder, thinking that the hide might stop a nine millimeter bullet, but certainly wouldn’t stop 45-70 gov’t from putting them in the dirt. 

I peeked around the edge of the boulder, checking where the ambushers were, and saw not only the three of them hurrying towards the bridge, but also spotted a man climbing down the side of the canyon above us, using the same path that they did. I brought my rifle around quickly as possible, and put a bullet in the lead man wielding a semi automatic rifle of a similar model to the standard weapon of the New California Republic armed forces. The bullet in his gut folded him over and stopped him dead in his tracks, making him stumble to the side and slump onto his ass. 

The woman with the submachine gun sent a spray of bullets my way then, so I took cover as they ricocheted off the boulder. Then the man with the high powered rifle took a shot, blasting off a chunk of the boulder and making me throw my arms over my head to protect myself from the shrapnel. I chambered another round and shouldered my rifle, waiting for them to come around. 

The woman peeked around first, her submachine gun raised, and I took a shot at her while simultaneously scrambling to get around the boulder away from her. I heard her shout as a spray of bullets chased me. Working the lever on my rifle again, I kept my eyes on that angle of approach, but then saw the man with the high powered rifle leveling his barrel with my head. I moved to bat aside the barrel, and I don’t know if I would have succeeded or not. 

Then the man I saw climbing down after them slammed a curved wooden club into the pale painted man’s head. He wore similar attire to these ambushers, as well as a visor with some feathers tucked into it, but with black tattoos and deeply tanned skin, as well as a belt with a holster for his club and his pistol. I paid little attention to his appearance at the moment, though, accepting that he was on my side as he first knocked the pale painted man to his knees, then onto his face with a few brutal strikes from his club. I turned my attention to the other woman, and carefully rounded the boulder with my rifle raised. 

When I tilted my head around the boulder, a few bullets sprayed at me, making me take cover again, but I saw that my bullet had hit her in one of her arms, so she sat flat, clutching her bloody arm to her chest and holding her submachine gun with one arm. I turned around, seeing this strange man that saved me, standing over the dead man with a club in his hand. He said to me, “I’ll get her attention on this side, you go around the other.” 

I furrowed my brow. “Can’t she hear us?” 

He raised a hand, saying, “Don’t worry, White Legs can’t speak the language of the Word of God like we can.” 

The White Legs rang a bell in my head, remembering the leader of the caravan warning us about them as we made our way north from the Mojave, but I knew little of them. Now was not the time to ask about them or how a tribal knew the Word of God, so instead I nodded and followed orders, trying to keep my footsteps quiet. I rounded the boulder, and when I heard gunshots next, I sprang from my cover, shooting the woman in the head with the barrel so close the powder from the gunshot burned her. Her blood sprayed out the other side of her head, then leaked slowly as her body slumped to the side. 

I stepped around the dead woman and found the tribal man with the tattoos and odd headdress standing before me. “So, I appreciate the assist, but just who the hell are you?” I gestured at the dead people around us. “And these people were White Legs? Why are they attacking caravans?”

He blinked rapidly. Tapping on his chest, he said, “I’m called Follows-Chalk, and I’m a scout for the Dead Horses tribe. Er, scout in training. It’s why I’m called Follows-Chalk; the other scouts leave chalk markings towards good game or enemy camps, and I follow the markings because I’m not as good at scouting as the others yet.” 

I scoffed and gestured at the man that he brained a minute ago. “Well, you did a pretty good job sneaking up on these guys.” 

A bashful look crossed his face as he glanced down and away from me. “I appreciate that, but we should get moving. More White Legs could show up, and I’d rather not tangle with any more than I have to.” 

Nodding, I took a couple steps away, then stumbled as my leg felt much weaker than usual. I looked down, seeing the wound through my calf, and the pain hit me all at once. I groaned and sat down involuntarily, the adrenaline fading from my system already. “Motherfuckers,” I grunted, and let my heavy backpack slip around my shoulders so I could look in it. 

“Hoi, looks like they got you good.” Follows-Chalk crouched beside me. “Need any help?”

I shook my head and pulled out the little pouch I was looking for. Opening it up, I found it filled with a pulpy white powder. I dipped a finger in it, and closed the drawstring before stowing it and turning to my wound. With my free hand, I rolled up my blood soaked pant leg, wincing as it peeled away from the blood leaking hole in my leg. I smeared the powder around the wound, just inside it, on both ends, my teeth grit the whole time. I wiped the remaining blood and powder off on my hip as my wound closed most of the way and the pain in it faded from my mind. I stowed the bag and stood up, the leg still feeling weak, but no longer hurting as much. 

I took the rose pendant around my neck in one hand, took a deep breath, and nodded. “I’m good to go now.” 

Follows-Chalk led me out of that stretch of canyon and took me to a nearby high location so that I could get a better view of the surrounding area. Up at the top of the ridge, we stood and observed Zion Valley below us. Ridges and buttes stretched out below us, with water running lazily between them, the Virgin River. “It’s a beautiful land, no?” 

I turned to Follows-Chalk, seeing the pride on his face, but a bit of pain behind it. “Yeah. I can see why it’s called Zion.” A quizzical look crossed his face. He didn’t have to voice his question. “Zion’s a holy land on the other side of the world, it’s the homeland of the Jews.” 

The quizzical look stayed on his tattooed face. “The Jews? Are they another tribe?”

I shrugged. “Yeah, I suppose. They’re one of the oldest, one of the most hated for some reason. People gave them a bad reputation that they didn’t deserve.” I folded my arms and looked away. “My dad had conflicting feelings about the Jews. I asked him about it once, and he said that he was supposed to hate them, but couldn’t hate a people he knew nothing about.”

Follows-Chalk nodded. “Sounds like a wise man. Speaking of wise men, I’m supposed to bring you to one. Well, I was supposed to greet your caravan and bring you all to him, but the White Legs got to you first.” He shook his head. “I don’t know if I truly wish damnation upon anyone, but if I do, it’s the White Legs.”

Then it was my turn to wear a confused look. “What do you have against the White Legs? Sure, they raid caravans, but so do criminals all over the place. What is it about the White Legs that makes you hate them?”

“Hoi. There’s very little to love about them.” He let out a humorless chuckle and I took a sip from a canteen. “My people, the Dead Horses, are at war with the White Legs. They, well, they’ve hurt people that I care about, family and friends. I would have to be stronger than I am to not hate them.” 

I clenched my fingers and the name Alice McLafferty came to mind. Then I clenched my teeth and told myself that what she did was God’s will, even if I didn’t believe it. “Let’s go see your wise man. Who is he, anyway?”

“Goot sists. He’s the leader of my tribe. Only he’s from a different tribe, one called the New Canaanites.” I perked up a bit as he led me down the ridge part of the way so that we could get on the road to where he knew them to be. “His name is Joshua. He taught my people the way of powder and guns, and to those of us who would listen the path of God. We have not lost a battle with him leading us.” 

“I was supposed to be delivering supplies to the New Canaanites.” I chewed my tongue. Figures that someone from a place called New Canaan would be named Joshua. “Do you think he would give me a quarter of the payment for the caravan if I showed up?”

“Probably not. You’d have to ask Joshua.” 

Follows-Chalk led me down into the Virgin River, where we waded carefully through the slot canyons, stepping over bear traps placed to deter White Legs. He pointed to huge white paintings on the canyon walls, saying that they detailed some of their history and victories in battle. Pointing to one particular painting, he said, “That one’s meant to show Joshua.” I looked up, seeing what looked almost like an upside down triangle with eyes in the middle of it. “He wears bandages over his face and most of his body, by the way. Figure you ought to know now so that it doesn’t surprise you.” 

I furrowed my brow and imitated his motions as he sidestepped past another partially buried and submerged bear trap. “Why does he wear bandages?”

Follows-Chalk kept his head turned away from me. “I’m not sure. He doesn’t like to talk about it, and I did ask him once. And one time he let me help change his bandages. It looks like he’s covered in old burns, but he refuses to take chems for the pain, and, hoi, is he in pain when he changes his bandages.” He shook his head, leading the way through the water still. 

All at once, a realization came to me, and I stopped in the water. Joshua, this wise man that had never lost a battle, covered in burns, was The Burned Man, Joshua Graham, a legend. It was said that he was Caesar’s first Legate of the Legion, and among that group of slavers and rapists, he was the meanest and toughest of the bunch, but when he lost the Battle for Hoover Dam, Caesar had him lit on fire and thrown into the Grand Canyon. I shook my head and kept wading after Follows-Chalk paused to look at me. 

The pain in my calf flared up a bit, and I let it distract me. “This water’s clean, right? I remember the others in the caravan talking about how clean the water was here.” 

A confused look on his tattoed face, Follows-Chalk nodded. “Of course the water’s clean. All the water in Zion is clean enough to drink. I’ve heard that the water outside of the Valley is irradiated and full of gunk that will make you sick. Is that true?”

I tried to focus on the conversation as Follows-Chalk asked me about the world outside of Zion, but my mind kept returning to the fact that this fresh faced, if tattooed, half naked tribal was leading me to the Malpais Legate. I told him about the dirty water from the bombs, and about Vegas’s delights and torments, but I occupied my mind with trying to remember where the bear traps were, in case I needed to run away. I reloaded my pistol magazine and rifle as we walked, telling Follows-Chalk that it always paid to be prepared, but in reality because I anticipated a potential gunfight. 

He led me to a wide open area, where the clear, clean water pooled. I saw on the shore of the river lagoon a couple of adults sparring with clubs, some others cooking or talking or cleaning guns, but all of them adults. I noticed a few topless women, most of them well muscled too, and all of them fit enough to fight, but kept my eyes to myself, not wanting to aggravate anybody. Follows-Chalk pointed to a cave and said, “Joshua should be in there. I’ll take you the rest of the way.” 

Inside the cave, a few of the Dead Horses lounged or slept, as it neared dusk. One woman, with a shaved head and tattooed torso, stood up as we entered, the flickering light from the torches on the wall making her appear a bit more menacing than perhaps she deserved, despite her musculature and frown. She folded her arms and stepped towards Follows-Chalk, saying something in a language similar to the White Legs’. I didn’t catch much, but I heard Joshua Graham’s name several times, and she called me something like, “Owslander.” 

She stepped up to me a moment later, saying in a somewhat upset tone, “Owslander, you look for Joshua Graham?”

I nodded. “Yes, I’m looking for him.”

“You show respect, owslander. You show respect, or Joshua show you thunder and fire.” 

“I understand.” 

Her expression and demeanor softened a bit, and she nodded before stepping back over to where she rested before, cleaning a rifle with an oiled rag. As Follows-Chalk led me away from her, deeper into the cave through a narrow passage, he said, “Don’t worry about her. She’s mostly all talk. Though you should respect Joshua. He’s a bit ornery at times.” He let out a nervous chuckle, and we stepped through into a bigger cavern. 

Up on a raised section of the cavern, overlooking the entrance to this part, a man sat at a table. He wore an old police vest, bulletproof and covered in pockets, and underneath the table, dusty, pinstripe slacks, and I saw over his forearms past his rolled up sleeves, and over his entire head save his eyes, he wore white bandages. Those eyes looked down at me, and while I couldn’t recall the color of them, I saw a power behind them, a ferocity that let me know that this was no random burn victim. He opened his mouth to speak, and his bandages creaked a little. 

“We should have given you a better welcome on your first visit to Zion, but from what I hear, the White Legs beat us to it.” My mind swirled with a thousand questions as his gravelly voice sounded across the cavern, but I found myself somewhat frozen, knowing that I ought to listen and let him finish what he was saying. I wondered whether he sounded so frightening from screaming battle and torture commands, or from being burned alive. He looked down at the pile of sidearms on the table, and continued checking them for functionality. “White Legs seem to be the only visitors we have these days, and I wouldn’t have expected anyone from the Mojave to come looking for us. And you’re a courier, no less. Not the one I was expecting, but I suppose he wouldn’t have come with a caravan.”

What he said next chilled me a bit, as it flouted my expectations. “I don’t know if you were close to the other members of your group, but you have my sympathy. I pray for the safety of all good people who come to Zion, even Gentiles, but can’t expect God to do all the work.” I expected this man to look upon me and speak to me with disdain, hatred even, for being a woman and being free, or at least for having visible track marks in my elbows. With that gravel voice, though, I couldn’t tell if he meant what he said or not. 

In my awestruck and fearful stupor, I thought little about what to say next, but he sat there waiting for me to respond, a pistol unloaded in his hands. “I, I came with the Happy Trails Caravan to make contact with the New Canaanites.” 

“Happy Trails. I remember. They were good friends.” Finally, I noticed something hiding in his voice: a barely constrained rage. I kept my hand close to my holstered pistol, hoping I could draw fast enough in case he turned violent. “I have bad news for your employers. New Canaan was destroyed, its citizens scattered. All because of the White Legs. And Caesar, of course.” He said White Legs and Caesar like a curse word, and I noticed that he pronounced Caesar like an outsider to the Legion, despite having been his Legate. “The White Legs want to join the Legion. Caesar’s rite of passage is the destruction of the New Canaanites, almost assuredly because of me. The good news is that we can help you find your way back. Daniel, one of the other New Canaanites, has made many maps of the region. The bad news is that we can’t help you right now, not with everything that’s going on.” 

I recognized what he implied, and sagged. I told myself I’d been foolish to hope this would be easy. The NCR, Legion and Mr. House had all made promises in exchange for my services, as well as less reputable people and organizations, but mostly I went my own way. Still, I knew no way out of Zion, and so I needed the help of the New Canaanites. “Let me help you. It sounds like you could use it.” 

Joshua Graham nodded. “I appreciate your neighborliness. We all go through periods of darkness.” His eyes fell to the holes in the crook of my elbow, and I folded my arms defensively. “In such times, we can turn to the Lord, but it’s good to have friends. Daniel and I need Pre-War tools to help us navigate beyond Zion. Should we need to evacuate, these instruments will be vital to us. Normally, we would have some of the Dead Horses or Sorrows look for them, but many Pre-War buildings in the valley are taboo. They won’t go inside. Follows-Chalk will guide you around the Valley. He knows enough of our language to ignore the taboos.” 

At the mention of his name, Follows-Chalk perked up, and he turned to me with a broad, youthful smile. It amazed me how he could listen to a man like that with a smile on his face, but sure enough he did, and strode over to me with it still stuck to his cheeks. “I know what we are to look for. Joshua would have sent me alone, but it’s usually better to have two people when travelling through Zion.” He motioned towards the tunnel that we came through. “Do you want to lead, or should I?” 

Eager to leave the cavern with the staring, Burned Man behind, I led the way out of it. On the way, I scratched my elbow, feeling Joshua Graham staring at me and the craving for more Med-X tugging at my mind.


End file.
